Rice Heat Therapy Bag

Made using red corduroy and some black and white spots for something different

The bag is my design, nothing rocket science about this! I make an inner of white cotton filled with rice with a few drops of lavender and the outer cover is easily removed so you can wash it, I used velcro on the closure. The poem is adapted from a few different versions floating around. This one was a gift for a Mum at school who has a sore neck.

I've also sewn some smaller square bags with inners filled with rice and peppermint oil, they are for the freezer for headaches and I can confirm they work..unfortunately I had to test one out this afternoon. Will post pics of them soon.

Kaffe Fassett Bag and Zippered Pouch

Kimmy purchased this absolutely gorgeous fabric recently in Sydney with no particular project in mind. She wanted a Glam Green Bag lesson, so this is what we did.

we had the smallest bit left so made a zippered pouch using this tutorial, it took no time at all and is so handy inside these roomy bags.
I love this Kaffe Fassett fabric and we used a favourite small leopard print for the lining.

Key Lockets

Lill's latest project...something very useful thanks little girl!

Gathering her supplies, we got the box of embroidery threads back from Granma.

We needed a keyring for our new post office keys to go on, something that would hang up in the car and be easy to find. Lill looked through her new craft book and found this great idea.

Pocket Lockets

* a cute little felt pocket with a ribbon attached to your key, the ribbon slides up and down to reveal the key.

This one is an owl and she picked the colours and did most of the cutting and stitched on the nose. I did the rest.

We made one for Daddy's car as well and Joe boy picked the colours for it.

So far so good in the car, no lost keys!

Sydney part Two

...here's a few quick pic's of Mothers Day in Sydney!

Tulips

my completely most favourite flower in the whole world, although these roses are up there! as are most things in Mum's garden.

But gee I love tulips especially when you see them in big bunches like this.

Moving on to the most deliciousness thing I've ever eaten on Mother's Day...

High Tea at the Queen Victoria Building.

Holy smokes was that the best thing I've ever had, nothing nothing was wrong or even a tiny bit wrong. We (Kimmy and I) sat in there for 1 1/2 hours savouring every treat on that plate, drinking 3 cups of tea each, watching all the goings on, marvelling at the sheer amounts of Old Country Roses strewn all over the room and most strangely having our voices change into new alter-ego's.... Sarndra and Sateen (the Prue and Trude type). Private joke.

We had sooooo much fun and spent too much money but gee we missed our children. Next Mothers Day I have promised Lilly and Mum I'll take them to Sydney for High Tea.

On the craft front here at the Mummy Made It house, its all crochet crochet crochet. I have done 2 beanies for Lilly, which are too small, they only take 2 hours or so to do and in my experience I need to follow the pattern exactly the first time before I go changing things to suit. So now I am working on the changed versions. When I get it right, I'll tell you all about it, including links to the tutorials I used and what changes I made to suit my kids heads! I've got Mum working on a matching scarf, a stripey ripple scarf to match some new pumpkin patch leggings I got Miss Lilly. And I've half done a beanie for Joe boy in some lovely Jet wool. We are headed to New Zealand in August so we need lots of winter woolies.

p.s. I've turned off the auto music so you need to press play to hear it now

and the new song is from the Tinkerbell movie and so sweet! We love it!

Sydney part One

I finally made it to Sydney! Yeah!

I had the best time, I went with my second best friend Kimmy (see pic below). We actually went to a 2 day Wound and Skin Integrity conference, which was very very interesting. I learnt so much and updated my knowledge on the latest trends in wound dressing selection and got a few new insights into everyday items, in particular - soap!

We managed to visit one fabric shop, The Remnant Warehouse, thanks to some hot tips from Cass, thanks Cass. We stopped here straight after getting off the plane. Material Obsession and The Craft Depot will have to wait till the next trip unfortunately.

No bargains were to be had, but it was just so nice to see our favourite fabrics in the flesh and not on the computer monitor! I bought 2m of Pop Garden and half a metre each of these cute ones below! No projects in mind, just couldn't go in there without purchasing something!
Proof that we were there, and yep we matched, actually we matched the whole trip. More posts to come of our adventures, so stay tuned!

Mothers Day Crochet

Nanny taught me how to crochet when I was 12 and that is probably why I can still do it, unlike knitting (another recent failure confirms that!) I love crocheting, I have never really done anything besides round and round blankets and granny squares blankets and those handy teatowels you hang in your kitchen. I saw a pattern recently in Better Homes and Gardens for crocheted flowers and got inspired to make some flower corsages, since Mothers Day is this week and I always try and make Mum something hand made to go in her present. This year she got a Pandora Bracelet, the I LOVE YOU charm, some blue tea towels and this gorgeous thing...

This pattern is from here, a new favourite blog to keep track of and the most gorgeous crochet. I added an extra row of petals (the darker purple around the outer edge). I also made one for Lilly's lovely teacher.

And since I am jumping ship this weekend and missing Mothers Day (don't worry I am sick to the core about it, truly I am) to attend a Conference in Sydney with my second best friend, I had an early Mothers Day with my little treasures.

This little boy couldn't wait to give me the present he made at Kindy, a gorgeous card with a photo of us on the front and a bag of homemade Coconut Ice! It was yum, we scoffed it down together, thanks Liza! I love the way Joey says Liza....Wyiza!


And today at Grade 1 the Mum's had a very special pampering complete with massage, manicures (my pink polish is still gleaming and its staying there for the trip to Sydney!) hair brushing, jewellery making, fruit kebab feeding, puzzles, singing, poems and lots and lots of love and hugs!

Happy Mothers Day to all my friends and family who are Mothers, Grandmothers etc, I will be enjoying this on the day with Kimmy and no doubt very very homesick for those 2 little people pictured above, and my husband of course!

my girls first sewing project...

and isn't she just so clever!

I found this book today and just couldn't leave it in the bookshop, its packed with easy step by step pictures to make gorgeous little things. Alot I'd like to do as well.

So Miss Lilly chose a felt butterfly brooch to make, she did all the placement and stitching except for pushing the final part of the needle through the layers of felt on each stitch as it was too hard for her little fingers. We need to get our embroidery cottons back off Mum so we don't have to use wool again, that will be much easier!

It took about 30 minutes to make and she didn't once whinge or want to give up. She learnt plain stitching and blanket stitch and also how to thread a needle, start off and end with a knot. We also did stuffing and sewing on a pin to the back.

Here is her very beautiful finished brooch.

You are a clever girl.

antiques and collectibles fair

Here are the treasures we bought...

Lilly chose the tiny little doll with sleeping eyes and the smallest crocheted dress you could imagine. The doll is 60's. I got another pair of Siamese Cats for my collection, a Holly Hobbie book about Mothers, a milk glass cup and saucer, a demitasse cup and saucer, some miniature figurines, some random plates and 2 trio's of Elizabethan Mother (my Mother's Day present and one is for my second best friend!)

Here is the new pink addition to my china cabinet to go beside the violets that I got last year at the same show. These cups are tiny, made in Japan but I'm not sure of anything else about them, so so sweet.

Monarch Butterfly's

Lately we have been on a complete tangent. It all started at Kindy where we had some caterpillars that were brought in by another family. Well Joey and I had to get some for ourself and after a bit of research, library work and googling we found out all about the Monarch Butterfly.

We learnt that they eat milkweed as caterpillars and if you open your eyes and look around you see it is growing everywhere. We found a massive patch nearby to our house and spent many hours wandering around just looking, finding caterpillars, butterfly's everywhere- how come we've never noticed these beautiful orange and black things before right here on the road we drive down everyday?) We took some home and had our own caterpillars. They ate and ate and ate, and grew very fat. Meanwhile we noticed more tiny caterpillars appearing, the milkweed we had picked had lots of eggs on it.

Eventually the caterpillars have eaten enough and hang upside down in what is known as the "J" shape, they spin a tiny silken pad to hang from. We noted they stayed in this position for 12hours before they magically shed their skin to reveal the Chrysalis!
The "J" shape ready to pupate. In the 'wild' the Monarch Caterpillar gets off the host plant and pupates elsewhere, but here in our house they have no choice but to hang from the plant they have been eating.

This is a newly formed Chrysalis, you can see the discarded skin below (a black crumpled piece).

After a few minutes a beautiful gold line appears along with some gold dots on the green Chrysalis. It is so beautiful. The Chrysalis hangs for roughly 10 to 14 days and changes occur.

Eventually the Chrysalis turns brownish and black in patches then magically, orange sections are seen as the Chrysalis case turns clear.

Here are my two trusty observers- observing at a very close range!

Not long later, a beautiful Monarch Butterfly emerged.

It hung from the empty Chrysalis for a few hours breathing in deeply to pump up its wings, then to uncrumple and dry them and then slowly take a few practice flaps to test them out.

Finally with a few wonky flaps and flight attempts it flew away. Off to find nectar to eat and milkweed to lay more eggs on after it finds a mate. There is no shortage of milkweed around here. The plan for our yard is a small milkweed patch and lots of colourful flowers to attract the Monarch to our garden. But look a little further at our place and we find things way more exciting than this: Eastern Dwarf Tree Frog, Blue Triangle Butterfly, Orchard Swallowtail Butterfly and another frog yet to be identified.

After our fun with the Monarch's we put the remaining milkweed plants that we had picked back at the patch so that the other tiny caterpillars could live on, the life cycle would never end in our house, because the more milk weed fresh shoots we picked to feed the growing caterpillars, the more new eggs we were bringing back home!

So this discovery led on to a small fascination with butterfly's. Everywhere we went we saw them, we carried our books and were able to identify most. We even found one outside our local bakery, on the smallest Oleander plant with all stages of the Common Crow Butterfly happening (these maybe only a boring black butterfly but the Chrysalis is by far the most beautiful I've seen and we had one hatch here this am).

Further on I investigated what Butterfly's were native to Australia, since Monarch's aren't, but interestingly are listed as potentially vulnerable in our Going, Going, Gone book. And after this, came to find out about the Richmond Birdwing Butterfly which is indeed very vulnerable and is a native butterfly to our very own region with a Recovery Program to boot and the expert Ray Seddon living just kilometres away at the ready to teach us all about them! Which is a whole new story in itself, stay tuned for our adventures with the Richmond Birdwing Butterfly and planting of the vines as they are far more important than the Monarch.

Richmond Birdwing Butterfly image from saveourwaterwaysnow